Senior Skipper

Over the past few days/weeks, I've been hearing about majors taking back flying. From what I understand of the new Delta contract, this is what is happening. However, what about the other airlines? Is there any provision for this in the new United contract? How about American, Alaska and USAir?

Are those other companies actually reducing their regional fleet, or are people just extrapolating from the Delta contract?

flyingreasemnky

United's new TA is pretty similar to Delta's and does include a net decrease in regional airplanes but an increase in the number of larger regional jets allowed. American is increasing their regional flying.

What

American hasn't increased their regional flying yet! The SKW contracts was just a shuffle of assets and to cover the parked ATRs, but we know they will likely increase regional airframes.

MatchPoint

Regardless of the larger jets UA is cutting feeder fly by almost 24% (!), dropping their total number of outsourced ships from its current 588 to 450. Over the same amount of time you'll see mainline ships increase.

That's 138 ships (50 seaters) they'll need to park if they don't add any larger jets. And for every 70+ seater they add they'll need to park an additional 50. So let’s say they add 70 CR9s/E-170s; that will increase the total number of 50 seaters they'll need to park to 208.

Guess who has the most 50 seaters?

pa28dakota

Sounds like the Legacy ExpressJet side then could be in for a good reduction in airframes with United's contract. While it is a good thing the majors are taking back flying, hopefully the impact on hard working regional pilots at the places with those 50 seaters is as painless as it could possibly be even though that is wishful thinking.

With regards to parking 50 seaters, anyone know or have an idea how many more Delta needs to park. I know all Comair's are parked and all of Pinnacle's will be gone here soon. That leaves how many left to park for Delta? It can't be that many.

W

johnso29

In addition to Comair's remaining CRJ100/200 aircraft that were parked, Skywest has agreed to park 66 and subject to membership ratification of their TA Pinnacle will park 140 of them. That will leave less then 125 50 seaters in the DCI fleet when all is done.

Rotor2prop

Guys I hate to rain on the warm fuzzies but regional flying is growing not shrinking! The only thing that is shrinking is the number of pilots and aircraft.

Take DCI, yes they are shrinking the fleet of regional aircraft but there is an increase in total regional lift seats. That equals growth! Delta sells seats not airplanes so....

There is a nice write up on it over at JC in the airline section.

I guess I should also say that once you take into account the 717 seats at mainline the regionals are not really "growing" but they are not shrinking by any means.

johnso29

Incorrect. The total number of DCI seats is DECREASING. When you park over 200 50 seaters, and add 70 76 seaters you have a decrease in seats. I'll even leave out Comair's 50 seaters that have been parked.

66 aircraft from Skywest-66 X 50 seats equals 3300 seats
140 aircraft from Pinnacle-140 X 50 seats equals 7000 seats
Combined seats equals 10,300 seats.

Now add the 70 additional 76 seat aircraft allowed per the Delta PWA.

70 X 76 equals 5,320 seats. That's a reduction of 4,980 seats.

The increase in total seats you're seeing in the cranky flier piece on JC includes seats from the 88 B717's being added to the mainline fleet.

Delta Connection Restructuring Plan | Jetcareers

rickair7777

It's complicated, but you have to look at "regional flying" in terms of capacity to generate revenue, not airplanes or seats. Seats is a closer approximation but is still not accurate because mainline aircraft seats are more fuel efficient, and mainline aircraft carry significant revenue cargo while RJ's carry almost none.

POTENTIAL Pilot compensation is always linked ultimately to the revenue generation capacity of the aircraft.

You'd have to do the math but it's safe to assume that regional flying is not really shrinking in terms of revenue. The 50 seaters are not making money with current fuel prices, so they had to go. As much as ALPA would like to claim a scope victory for the 50-seat drawdown, that had nothing to do with scope...it was all about revenue or lack thereof. Management just gave away something they were going to get rid of anyway. There may have been a scope victory in preventing one-for-one replacement with 90's.

A shift of capacity to larger aircraft will mean fewer regional jobs, but necessarily more major jobs.

A true scope victory would require moving the 90's (anything with more than 79 seats or a certain max weight) to mainline.

johnso29

So you're saying SkyWest management was simply going to accept 66 50 seaters to be parked with nothing in return?

And mainline already owns anything over 76 seats and 86,000 lbs. (Minus the 36 Compass EMB175's grandfathered in at 89,000 lbs)